Prather also noted some other advances to boost the horsepower of your 3000s. It doesn't do much good to increase processor power without expanding bandwidth and peripheral speeds, so you'll see the ability to install more FDDI cards in the 3000 this year as well as a 9-Gb disk drive. HP will also be rolling out a DDS-3 (DAT) "stacker," a DAT drive that holds six cartridges at once. HP will also support the EMC Symmetrix 3430 drives this year, the latest generation of high capacity RAID devices. Most important was a comment about peripheral connection strategy. Prather said that "FibreChannel is the future of HP 3000 peripherals," since it does wonderful things for bandwidth, range and device count. Imagine between 25 and 100 megabit per second throughput, devices up to 10 kilometers apart and 127 devices on a single FDDI loop. The increases over SCSI limits are a significant part of the effort to keep the 3000's growth pacing the growth of your businesses.
Password-protected diagnostics:
the itch you can't scratch and won't go away
This was again a hot topic at IPROF's SIGSYSMAN meeting. A little
background: with the
introduction of MPE/iX 5.0, HP started password-protecting various
diagnostic tools
accessible from SYSDIAG. HP's stated rational is two-fold -- protect its
intellectual
property from use by would-be competitors for hardware maintenance, and
save users
from accidentally shooting themselves in the foot. One suspects it is more
the former
than the latter. Regardless of the motivation, anyone with a current
hardware contract is
entitled to have the password; however, there is considerable confusion
about how to
obtain it. Even worse, if you do not have it, and really, really need it,
there is no
mechanism that guarantees you will be able to immediately obtain a valid
password. It is
not uncommon for a Response Center engineer to ask a customer to run a
particular
diagnostic. If it is one that is password-protected and you do not have the
password, you
are out of luck -- because the Response Center engineer has no way to
supply you with
a password.
It is extremely unlikely HP will reverse the decision to password protect certain diagnostics (the same password scheme applies to HP 9000 systems). SIGSYSMAN chairman Scott Hirsch reviewed the current procedure (the key point is to call HP License Administration at 800.538.1733 and have your contract number or system handle available) and brainstormed with the SIG members about alternative delivery methods. The best was to use http://us-support.hp.com, since this site already requires registration with a valid contract for access to HP's knowledge base. So it has a mechanism in place that could be used to supply the diagnostics' password. Hirsch accepted the challenge to work with HP to see if this could be implemented. -- John Burke
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
how come you don't see me at all?
One of SIGMPE's responsibilities is to discuss possible enhancements to
MPE/iX and
prioritize them so as to include the high priority items on the Interex System
Improvement Committee Ballot distributed to all members of Interex. The top
three items
(more than three will actually appear on the SIC ballot) were disk
mirroring of the
system volume set, Posix smoothing and porting MPE/iX to workstation
hardware. Items
one and three are becoming perennial favorites. However, based upon HP's
response in
the past and its immediate comments at IPROF, I doubt we will ever see
either become a
reality.
Mirrored Disk/iX is a software product that allows you to pair off disks in such a way that the data from one is "mirrored" on the other. If you have a catastrophic failure of one drive, the other automatically takes over while its pair is being repaired. The argument in favor of mirroring the system volume set is that without this piece, disk mirroring is an incomplete solution to high availability and of questionable use overall since there are other ways to deal with data integrity of user volumes. HP's response has been, and continues to be, that mirroring the system volume set is a very high effort project. Instead, HP is pursuing a strategy of recommending disk arrays for the system volume set. It even has a project in the works to eliminate the principal single point of failure in its Model 10 and 20 disk arrays: the controller. The project involves adding a backup controller with automatic switching if the primary controller fails.
HP is very resistant to putting MPE/iX on workstation hardware, citing the high cost to develop the drivers and low payback. HP believes it would never sell more than a couple hundred units at most. HP is assuming that the principal reason behind the MPE/iX-on-a-workstation request is for low cost, small footprint, developer machines. It is looking at reducing the minimum user license from eight to four, and perhaps even two, and patterning the HP 3000 developers program after the HP 9000 program to provide hefty discounts on hardware and support.
The principal Posix smoothing issues fared much better. Posix smoothing generally means making the Posix environment on the HP 3000 interoperate better with the traditional MPE environment. The number one item was support for the Gnu tools, which include the C++ alternative compiler g++. Obviously, customers are reluctant to use these tools or any applications derived from them, such as the HP-ballyhooed port of Java to the HP 3000, unless they are confident the Gnu environment is supported by HP. Where the actual support comes from, and even how much it might cost, was of less concern to the group than a statement from HP that Gnu was of strategic importance to the HP 3000, would be delivered by HP and would be kept up to date. HP representatives appeared to believe such a statement of support was possible.
The second item on the Posix smoothing list was a request for HP to distribute Gnu, Java, and other freeware via FOS as part of the update and PowerPatch process. First, this would automatically give credibility to tools currently available mostly from the Jazz Web server which HP is heavily promoting as strategic, such as Java and Samba. Secondly, it would get the tools in the hands of a much wider audience, since many people do not have the high speed Internet access needed to download multi-megabyte files. A step in this direction was the FREEWARE/DEMO tape provided to all attendees of IPROF courtesy of Lund Performance Solutions (special kudos to Mike Hensley of Lund who did all the work of testing and packaging the items and also all the tape duplication.) Hensley volunteered to maintain the package of freeware if HP would take over the distribution via, ideally, a FREEWARE account in FOS. The account would be much like TELESUP, except there would be a mechanism to allow the customer to suppress loading of the FREEWARE account. This FREEWARE MPE enhancement request appears to have a high probability of happening. -- John Burke
SIGIMAGE users asked for a better ODBC interface
The returns on SIGIMAGE balloting at IPROF showed that an Allbase-free ODBC
interface
was the most popular enhancement request this year, hands down. Too bad there's
already at least three commercial solutions from third parties that provide
an ODBC way
around Allbase, prompting HP's Jon Bale to say that's a good reason not to
provide an
HP solution for the request. Bale, who's the Solution Team leader for database
improvements and the CSY Database Development Manager, told attendees at
the IPROF
show, "the more you ask for, the less we can do," and doubts that HP will
provide the
solution with both an M.B. Foster Associates and Minisoft solution
available this month.
ODBC alternatives that would drop the complexity of administering Allbase
attachments
while supporting IMAGE, KSAM and MPE files ranked numbers 1-2 on the ballot
results
by a wide margin. Far behind were date/time datatypes for IMAGE, a request
that's a lot
more important now that Year 2000 projects are underway in the 3000
customer base.
No consensus on a format for the datatypes came out of the SIGIMAGE
meetings at IPROF,
but SIGIMAGE chair Ken Sletten said he expects the SIG's Executive
Committee will have a
meeting soon about it -- to provide a clear signal to Bale's lab on what
needs to be
built. HP showed new foresight about the date/time issue by asking
customers which HP
products will need to support whatever datatypes are being built. IPROF
attendees voted
that the most critical HP application to support the datatypes was Query,
which HP also
pegged as the most difficult. Transact customers were the next most vocal,
but HP's list of
possibilities included Business Basic and BRW. (See our April issue for
more details)
Oracle's on sale again, and this time everybody qualifies
A new sale on Oracle kicks off this month, as HP works harder to get the HP
3000
customer count of the relational database up to a more meaningful fraction of
TurboIMAGE customers. Through October 31 you can get the database running
on a new
or upgraded 3000 for $495 per user license up to 25 licenses, two-thirds
off the regular
price. The last discount was available only to customers who hadn't
installed Oracle yet.
The new price applies to version 7.2.3, the latest for the 3000, and will
also apply to 7.3
when that version becomes available this summer. HP is also offering 10-20
percent off
the price of hardware, integrated peripherals and MPE when Oracle is
bundled with any
9x8 purchase (except for the 918). The floor on this deal starts at eight
licenses, so now
the starting price for Oracle is under $4,000, a new low for the database.
You can get
the deal either through your reseller or HP directly, but Oracle's direct
sales force can't
process your order. HP says the promotion is designed to help 3000 shops
set up a
datamart or workgroup-sized application using Oracle as a base.
Roseville rose from the dead to listen to 3000 requests
After a black summer appearance at HP World where it unpromised
enhancements, HP's
SSD division based in Roseville, Calif. -- working on things like Transact
and HP 3000
compilers -- returned to listen to customers at IPROF. In particular,
Transact customers
were excited about the prospects of an Open Transact, an enhancement to the
4GL that
would let it receive base and file IDs passed from other languages. (See
our April issue
for more details)